Welcome Message from the Program Chairs

Since the 1st World Sepsis Congress in 2016, considerable progress has been made towards the Global Sepsis Alliance’s goal of “A World Free of Sepsis”.

Notably, on May 26th, 2017, the World Health Assembly, the World Health Organisation’s decision-making body, adopted a resolution on improving the prevention, diagnosis, and management of sepsis. In January 2018, the World Health Organisation convened a meeting of an expert advisory group on sepsis to put in place a plan to act on the resolution. That meeting was attended by representatives from all WHO regions and made great strides in developing a plan to operationalizing the resolution. The creation of the African Alliance, the European Sepsis Alliance, and similar initiatives in other regions of the world indicate substantial progress, as does the Khartoum Resolution, which calls for a Pan-African strategy to tackle sepsis.

Another critical area now receiving much greater attention is the need to provide appropriate healthcare and support to sepsis survivors and to those bereaved by sepsis.

Despite these advances, there is still a great deal to be done to ensure uniform access to sepsis care around the world. Great inequalities still exist in healthcare resources and in the management of sepsis – particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

Low sepsis awareness, a lack of basic resources including trained healthcare workers, difficulties in access to care, and inadequate process of care are all hallmarks of resource-poor settings. Disparities are often influenced by healthcare funding models and – in some countries – access to care and its quality are based heavily on the ability of the patient or their family to pay. In such settings, decisions to withhold or withdraw expensive treatments and critical care may be driven by financial considerations.

Like the 1st World Sepsis Congress, the 2nd WSC brings together highly ranked representatives of international and national healthcare authorities, NGOs, policy makers, patients, patient advocacy groups, clinical scientists, researchers, and pioneers in healthcare improvement with the unified goal of improving sepsis healthcare around the world. As program chairs and on behalf of the Global Sepsis Alliance, we cordially invite you to join us for this free online congress and to join us in working towards “A World Free of Sepsis”.